


Elemental

by thecarlysutra



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dawn Summers is The Key, Family, Gen, Mama Cordelia, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-26
Updated: 2010-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The monks had something precious, and they had to make sure it would be protected.  So they made into a girl, and they gave it to a great warrior, in the form of a daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elemental

  
This night has been forever. The stars are bone white blossoms hanging still around her, unmoving, untwinkling. The night sky is no shining fairyland, no Vegas strip of glittering lights. It is a boneyard.

Cordelia's mind is as wide as the sky. Now, she sees everything. Past, present, future. This reality, others. The mysteries and secrets of the universe.

Humans, people. Despite their ability to build machines that can rend atoms, there are still such vast expanses of things they don't know. These atoms they can break, they cannot even find the location of the parts that make them up. They have a formula to guess the positions of the electrons within them, but it's only a guess. And they have no way to check to see if they're right, no way to verify which reality is true.

Maybe this is true. But there's no way to really know.

***

She is light. People, human people, have so many parts that make them up. Hair, and skin, and hundreds of little bones. Eyelashes and freckles, teeth and navels. All those different kind of cells. Brain cells full of electricity; little cheerio red blood cells that course through tiny, cobwebby capillaries pink and blue beneath the skin. All these little machine parts constantly running, the mania of the inside of a clock.

It's so much simpler this way. She's light, and that's it. An essence, elemental. What does it mean, to be a key? Another definition does not complicate her. It's like a translation, the same word in another language.

She is light, and she shines brighter than the entire night sky.

***

The monks had something precious to protect. Something so precious, lives had to be traded for it. A gift that required constant blood sacrifices to maintain. They had something precious, and they had to make sure it would be protected, so they made it into a girl. They made it a girl, and they gave it to a great warrior, in the shape of something he would understand as precious in his bone, in his blood. He could understand the fate of the world intellectually, but he had to understand this in his bone, so he wouldn't blink before laying down his life for it.

The monks had something precious, and they had to make sure it would be protected. So they made into a girl, and they gave it to a great warrior, in the form of a daughter.

The boys are out killing things, bringing bacon. Even though Dawn isn't a baby anymore, Cordelia helps the girl get ready for bed. Fred checks Dawn's homework, because that's her area, and Cordelia helps her pick out her outfit to tomorrow and talks to her about boys at school, because that's _her_ area.

"He's always stealing my pencils," Dawn says.

"The hottest guys are always kind of jerky," Cordelia says.

Fred looks up wistfully from proofing Dawn's algebra. "Angel's not jerky. He's—"

"My _dad_!" Dawn shrieks. "Ew! He can't be hot; he's my dad!"

"He can be both," Cordelia says reasonably. "I mean, he's got a life outside of you. Hundreds of years of it."

Before Dawn can put up any more of a fuss, Cordelia holds up the Queen C Approved outfit she's put together for tomorrow. It's enough of a distraction; Dawn squeals happily.

"Cordy, it's perfect! I can't even imagine getting through high school without your keen fashion sense."

Cordelia shrugs.

"It's a gift," she says.

She hangs the outfit on Dawn's closet door, and then shoos Dawn off the bed so she can pull down the covers. Dawn whines. She's too old for that, too, but she knows that Cordelia is susceptible to her wheedling.

"It's too early for bed! Dad and Gunn and Wes aren't even back yet."

"And they probably won't be until right before the natural lighting makes your dad a crispy critter," Cordelia says. "For normal people, it's late."

Dawn rolls her eyes, but slips beneath the covers, anyway. "What do we know about normal people?"

"Oh, I know a little something about everything," Cordelia says, sitting beside Dawn on the bed.

"Then why does Fred have to look over my chemistry homework?" Dawn asks.

"Hush," says Cordelia.

She presses her lips against Dawn's forehead, a benediction. A prayer. Now I lay thee down to sleep; I pray the Lord your soul to keep.

The monks had something precious, and they had to make sure it would be protected. Something that would be understood as precious. In her bone; in her blood.  



End file.
